Show HN: Cosmic – Headless CMS and API toolkit v2.0
6 comments
Seems really expensive for just a headless CMS. $300 a month for the "starter" small team pack. Then the extra premium features like $99 monthly just to have access to webhooks and another $99 to track revision history (when other CMSes include both in all plans for free) feels like a lot to ask.
Is there something that you think sets Cosmic apart from other headless CMSes? I have used many headless (or headless capable) CMS platforms and many aren't all that different aside from pricing and UI.
Is there something that you think sets Cosmic apart from other headless CMSes? I have used many headless (or headless capable) CMS platforms and many aren't all that different aside from pricing and UI.
A CMS is something teams spend a lot of time in. And it's worth it to pay a little more for a great user experience. We spent a lot of time focusing on the user experience.
There are a lot of free or cheaper CMS options out there with a not great user experience.
There are a lot of free or cheaper CMS options out there with a not great user experience.
Congrats on launching. The pricing is bit tricky. Like it moves from Free to $299 pretty quickly. And then there are lot of tiers with very subtle distinctions for teams at that size.
I help lot of founders/startups to build and scale products and operations. I am always on look out for such api first headless CMS or backend services like appwrite, firebase and supabase. I think you will have to relook into the pricing here as the climb is very steep
I help lot of founders/startups to build and scale products and operations. I am always on look out for such api first headless CMS or backend services like appwrite, firebase and supabase. I think you will have to relook into the pricing here as the climb is very steep
Thank you. Will keep this in mind.
This looks really nice, but I wouldn't pay $300/mo for it. I'm already using Notion and Airtable as a headless CMS, and wouldn't be able to justify spending $3000/yr to switch off of it...
The reason we use Notion and Airtable is that they already have multiplayer editing built in, at $20/seat
The reason we use Notion and Airtable is that they already have multiplayer editing built in, at $20/seat
Congratulations on launching, it looks like a very polished product. I'll be interested to see where the conversation goes on this here on HN. Having recently worked closely on a Contentful + Gatsby website, I'm more convinced then ever that headless CMSs are overkill in all but the largest companies. Contentful was eye-wateringly expensive for a laughably limited feature-set and the complexity was soul destroying. Hopefully things are better in Cosmic-land.
Thank you. Take it for a spin and let me know if you have any questions.
So expensive!
I’m Tony, the CEO of Cosmic (YC W19). We just released Cosmic 2.0. This release is the result of two years of dedicated work by our team which we are proud to share with you.
Our new website: https://www.cosmicjs.com
Documentation: https://www.cosmicjs.com/docs.
Sign up for the new Cosmic dashboard (https://app.cosmicjs.com/signup). Free plans available.
Cosmic is an API-first (headless) CMS that offers a web dashboard to create content and API tools to deliver content to any website or app. Our customers use Cosmic to avoid the pain of building and maintaining their own content management infrastructure. (We originally launched on HN in 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19330262)
Problem: I started building Cosmic back in 2014. As a full stack web developer working at a web design and development agency, I found it tedious to build each project with the same open-source tech stack (WordPress), performing the same plugin installation, configuration set up, hosting, etc. Plus, I found that we would run into the same issues after a website was finished: clients would blow up their website by installing a rouge plugin, constant battles with bot armies, and other limitations with developing on a monolithic CMS website.
Solution: I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to have a single easy-to-use dashboard interface to manage content, and dedicated API endpoints to deliver content to any website or app, regardless of tech stack or device? The result would be a website that is lighter, faster, and more secure.” Then began developing the solution I wanted.
Cosmic was born, and it satisfied my needs. I then let others try it. They would build stuff using Cosmic, break stuff, I would fix it, they would break something else, rinse and repeat. Eventually I met others who were willing to work on the problem with me…
Cosmic 2.0
Fast forward to today, after years of building, talking to customers, getting lots of feedback, and from that learning, building a brand new version of Cosmic that, we as a team, are really proud of. Rebuilt from the ground up, Cosmic 2.0 aims to satisfy the same needs that I had years ago: provide an intuitive dashboard to create content and powerful tools to deliver content to any website or app. Some notable improvements and new features include:
1. Overall faster, more responsive dashboard experience.
2. New JavaScript SDK https://www.npmjs.com/package/@cosmicjs/sdk
3. Darkmode theme option.
4. Stricter Object type modeling and more types including video, audio, color picker, emoji, and more.
5. Content folders for better content organization.
6. Global search dashboard command palette (Command + k).
Along with a new dashboard, we’ve got a brand new website, rebuilt from the ground up using: - Next.js - TypeScript - Tailwind CSS - Content managed by Cosmic (of course! We are dog-fooding our own CMS)
Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below!